The Breakfast Club: Trapped in the Scene
I love my book characters. Most of them anyway. Any budding fiction author or screenwriter enjoys pushing their characters through the plot that ultimately defines them as characters. Whether it be through joyous celebration, hard battles or borderline misery.
Writing epic fantasy myself, I indulge heavily in having my characters explore vast, deep worlds and environments that thrive on imagination. Or having them meet larger than life people and encounter creatures, artifacts and mysteries that are all strands in a deeper spiderweb.
Yet somehow, some of the best and my favourite scenes are the ones where I simply have my characters take a breather, and talk things out. You can learn a whole lot more about them, I find, when you encourage or even force them to interact. Or even just discuss their disagreements or experiences. You may not learn a whole lot from one character acting alone in an echo chamber.
Some of my favourite movies, or scenes from them, are where there are simply a handful if not two characters, sitting in a bubble within the story, talking about their problems.
And I think this is one of countless reasons as to why I, like countless others, love “The Breakfast Club”.
The intimate, character heavy peek into the teenage zeitgeist showcased in The Breakfast Club, is one that is repeated in waves across each generation. It resonates with each teenage generation that has made its survival and love justified. It captures so well that awkward place between childhood and adulthood where you still may not know who you are or where you’re going. Or perhaps you do know but everything may be set to change very soon.
Regardless, it stands out to me in particular because of how the whole story is structured. It presents to me a trick or tool that I think is an incredible exercise in generating conflict and making your character’s as three-dimensional as possible. And discover parts of them that you never saw before. Unveiling more into how they view or interact with their world. Revealing how they feel and view the relationships they have with the other characters in your story.
By trapping your characters in a single place or time, with no other obstacles except each other, you may find them turning into as close to real people as possible.
In this instance, our ragtag odd bunch of teens are locked up in the school library with nothing to do but lament the long hours of their weekend detention. In between attempts to dodge the teacher attending them like a hawk, the group gradually forms a brief, yet intimate bond that tears down the differences they thought they had.
Take note of when the jock sympathizes with the basketcase over how her parents ignore her. Or how the jock and the criminal relate over their angry, indifferent fathers. Or when the criminal seems shaken that the nerd of all people considered the lingering thought of suicide. Both as close to the void as each other.
What is often more important than what you show through your characters, is what you don’t show, be it by subtext, backstory or otherwise. All these students are still familiar with each other as they go to the same school. Each one in a way, serves as a microcosm of certain stereotypes that may plague a western school, 80’s or today.
Through the arc of The Breakfast Club, characters that are radically different from one another, are locked up and forced to deal with each other.
As views are discussed, arguments are had, and respect is gained, they eventually learn that they are not quite so different after all, going through similar or separate troubles in their own ways.
But it’s not just The Breakfast Club that follows this formula so well. Granted, the formula does encapsulate the entire film start to finish, and it sets the supreme standard of how the formula works when at its best.
But this formula/trope is still mirrored if not honoured in other media and film today. It’s possibly why people love that one episode of Family Guy where Stewie and Brian are trapped in a bank vault for a whole night. If you can recall any scene in writing or film that follows this bottle formula of isolating your characters in a position of conflict, I would not be too surprised if it is subtly influenced or heavily inspired by storytelling greats like The Breakfast Club.
It may very well be a common theme across all storytelling, that scenarios and stories like this resonate so well with us because they are so utterly human. After all what’s more human than just talking to someone you care about, or perhaps despise? What’s more human than talking about your problems to a willing ear, whether or not you desire answers or action?
I see so many shows and films and books that always shoot for big characters, big worlds, high adventure and high stakes. Action and thrills that capture the eye, and don’t get me wrong I’m a sucker for this too and practise it greatly. But without any conflict on a closer, more intimate level, a relatable level, it feels vapid. It all feels empty when the characters themselves lack any humanity that would make the audience connect with them even on a superficial level. It’s like creating something as big as an ocean, but with the depth of a puddle.
I too, enjoy creating epic fantasy and massive, high-flying adventure, but at the end of the day, I always want that deep, soulful journey of my human characters, go through human problems. Not trying to fight a war, or slay a dragon or defeat the Big Bad Evil Dark Lord.
But just, people, going through their problems, whether it be grief, loss, trauma, regret, bitterness, animosity, or even just boundless teenage angst.
So, the next time you want to make your characters come to life and shine as best as you can hope for, toss them in a bottle, and shake em up like fireflies.
Thank you for reading and have a beautiful day!
Daniel
